Useful, but...

by Andrea Bonavita

Take a look around you, and you will agree with me that we are surrounded by plastic. In this very moment I’m typing on the keyboard of my laptop, over a table, near several pens, a blue lamp and a cell phone: I have just mentioned six items in which plastic plays a primary role. Plastic is very useful – light, cheap, it can be processed into many ways – but we cannot forget its negative aspects, pretty relevant.

As reported by Rachel Feltman, journalist of the Washington Post, some researches of the Oregon State University recently called for a total ban of plastic microbeads: why? We could only think, for example, how cool our new toothpaste is, with its microbeads. The problem is that after our clean, microbeads reach rivers and seas, polluting aquatic ecosystems. The scientists have proved that plastic microbeads alter the complex equilibrium of the environment and, above all, we can’t get rid of them.

Sometimes we think that things finish to exist because there are no longer under our eyes. But throwing them away, we just swift them… Weighting pros and cons of our simplest behaviors, like using a toothpaste, is not easy. Before buying plastic or products containing plastic, we might look for information, understand percent, time and way of its recycle, and finally do our choice. Some could say that it is just waste of time. However, in the beginning every change of behavior seems imposed and artificial; with time, it becomes natural and used.

We have to change our relationship with plastic: only in this way we can contribute to limit the negative aspects of its use and build a better world.